Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2006 12:47:37 -0500 From: "Nikolas Britton" <nikolas.britton@gmail.com> To: "Alex Zbyslaw" <xfb52@dial.pipex.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Gotta start somewhere ... how many of us are really out there? Message-ID: <ef10de9a0608021047u553a812fpbcf09c8c26df09b6@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <44D09F46.6020300@dial.pipex.com> References: <20060728164526.E27679@ganymede.hub.org> <ef10de9a0608010121j154c7ael7ece0997a479572e@mail.gmail.com> <20060801120058.O27679@ganymede.hub.org> <17615.30414.314802.792740@jerusalem.litteratus.org> <ef10de9a0608011037w3609b5a6k1709aea61d43ed0f@mail.gmail.com> <20060801223754.U27679@ganymede.hub.org> <ef10de9a0608011859q45bdd636o757fb4aba2d3404d@mail.gmail.com> <20060801230301.Q27679@ganymede.hub.org> <df9ac37c0608012122q196a6434jf849cc7bd8c1156@mail.gmail.com> <44D09F46.6020300@dial.pipex.com>
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On 8/2/06, Alex Zbyslaw <xfb52@dial.pipex.com> wrote: > Atom Powers wrote: > > > > > It's still going to take you at least a release to get it into the > > base install. But if you can find a way to use the portsnap data and > > get useful information out of the cvsup data you can probably get > > numbers now with an error margin as low as 8% to 15%. > > Hey, I said that a week ago! Guess I agree with you :-) > > Not quite convinced by the error margin, but as long as you count too > low then I see no problem. If, as Nikolas pointed out, a URL-based > reporting scheme can be bombarded with fakes, as a vendor I would not > want to listen to any numbers it produced. > > But the question then goes back to: can you make any kind of count out > of cvsup servers? Someone already said they thought you couldn't. > > At the end of the day, I think that unique IP address is as close as > it's possible to get to host count. It will undercount NATed hosts and > networks with single cvsup/portsnap distribution points, and will > overcount variable IP addresses. The latter, I think matters the least > as long as you do your stats over a short enough period (e.g. 1 month). > That wouldn't overcount much and deliberate faking would be hard and > limited (how many IP addresses can one faker get access to?). > > Then, as long as the methodology is clearly explained along with any > stats, you'd have the ammunition to persuade vendors (we hope). > > --Alex > The problem with cvsup (I use cvsup.) is the error margin. The closer we get to release dates the more I use cvsup, It's a side effect of running -STABLE. anyways... back to the fakers... Lets think about the usage patterns of a "typical" faker vs NAT: Faker: * All from one IP address. * Sequential requests. * Scripted, so each request should be timed perfectly with the one before and the one after it. * Thousands of requests. NATed Boxes: * All from one IP address. * Parallel requests. * Not scripted, requests should be more random. * Hundreds of requests? Also I seem to remember a way to detect NATed boxes: http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=detecting+NAT&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 -- BSD Podcasts @: http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/ http://freebsdforall.blogspot.com/
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